Rich, buttery chocolate shortbread sandwich cookies are just begging to be filled with your favorite frosting! Of course, chocolate and orange is a seasonal favourite, but is there really anything better than chocolate and mint? For today’s recipe we’ve filled crisp chocolate shortbread cookies with vanilla mint frosting, and dipped the edges in crushed candy canes. Let the holiday festivities begin!

Gathering Together – A Sign Of The Season

Regardless of your beliefs or your faith gathering with the people you love to eat food is a universal occurrence. As the saying goes, the days are long yet the years are short! Here are a few ways I plan to gather with my people this holiday season:

Watch Christmas Eve On Sesame Street – Every Christmas when I was a child, my mother, my sister, and I would snuggle together in our Christmas jammies and wait for Christmas Eve On Sesame Street to come on TV. This will be the first year I am carrying on this treasured family tradition with my own daughter. We’ll wear Christmas jammies, drink hot chocolate, and eat all the snacks!
Making The Christmas Eve Rounds – Christmas Eve has always had a “feeling” for me. It’s the night we drive from house to house, visiting family, eating, drinking, and being generally merry. It’s an evening when all of the shopping is done, the stores are all closed, no one has to go to work, and you can truly enjoy the pepperoni and cheese platters, the rum and eggnog, and the people you love. My favourite night of the entire year!
Eating Garny’s Dressing At The Family Christmas Feast – Whether it’s my house, my Dad’s house, or my Mum’s, Christmas dinner simply isn’t complete until I’ve tasted Garny’s Dressing. Garny is the name we called my great-grandmother, and her dressing recipe (aka stuffing to many of you) is THE BEST. A simple mix of mashed potato, butter, breadcrumbs, finely diced onion, salt, pepper, and tons of summer savory is mixed by hand, wrapped in foil, and shoved inside a turkey to roast. It’s my favourite thing to eat during the Christmas season (except for the chocolate shortbread sandwich cookies of course!).
Baking Holiday Treats – My daughter Elodie loves to be in the kitchen. When we cook or bake she stands on a kitchen chair, cracks eggs, mixes flour, wipes the counter, tops cookies with sprinkles, and does just about any other little thing I let her. Having her next to me in the kitchen has taught me patience (BUCKETS OF PATIENCE), but also the sheer importance of spending time together creating memories. The simple joys are all I’m really after!

How about you? Will you gather with your people during the holidays? Let us know in the comments below!

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Chocolate Shortbread Sandwich Cookies

Author: Kelly Neil

Description

A rich buttery refrigerator cookie to fill with your favorite frosting! Vanilla Mint Frosting recipe is below in the notes.

Scale

Ingredients

2 cups flour

½ to ¾ cups cocoa powder (to personal taste – ¾ cup is VERY dark and VERY chocolaty)

½ cup sugar

½ teaspoons salt

⅛ teaspoon baking powder

¾ cups (170g) butter, cut into small cubes

¼ cup ice water

Instructions

Pulse flour, cocoa, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a food processor until well combined.

Add butter and pulse until mixture is coarse and crumbly.

With food processor running, add ice water by the tablespoon until dough comes together and feels pliable to the touch. Dump dough onto counter and divide in two. Roll each half of the dough into a 2-inch round log, pressing and flattening the ends in with a butter knife. Wrap teo logs in plastic and place in fridge for one hour minimum.

Preheat oven to 350ºF and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Remove cookie log from oven and slice into ¼-inch discs. Place discs on prepared baking sheet and bake in batches of 12 for 12-15 minutes. Cool on rack. Once cool fill with your favourite frosting.

Notes

The cookies pictured are filled with Vanilla Mint Frosting, with the edges dipped in Crushed Candy Canes.

Vanilla Mint Frosting

1 cup (226g) butter, soft

2 cups icing sugar, sifted

½ to 1 teaspoon peppermint extract (to taste)

½ to 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (to taste)

⅛ teaspoon salt

Place all ingredients in a stand mixer. Mix on low until butter and icing sugar start to combine. Increase speed of mixer, and when sugar is incorporated, mix on high speed 1 minute. Pipe onto shortbreads and sandwich together squeezing a bit to expose the frosting on the sides. Roll exposed frosting in crushed candy canes.

Keywords: chocolate shortbread recipe